Every realignment cycle, you have head coaches who breathe a sigh of relief looking at their new district. Others, not so much.
Playoff paths get harder, or easier and there’s a running joke amongst those in the industry that some coaches will wait until realignment before making a decision to stay or leave a job. It gets that serious.
Below are some of the winners and losers from Monday’s realignment.
Winners
Coppell High School
Coppell was separated from Lewisville ISD, a district whose flagship school is less than 15 minutes from Coppell, but you likely won’t hear complaints from Coppell about landing in District 7-6A. On paper, it’s likely to be the front-runner to win the district. And although district may be a lighter load with the Plano and Richardson programs replacing Lewisville ISD, the playoffs become more treacherous with the likes of Allen and Prosper Walnut Grove out of District 6-6A potentially waiting in the area round.
Frisco Wakeland enters the field to face Frisco Lone Star in a District 5-5A Division I high school football game played on October 24, 2025 at The Star in Frisco.
Steve Nurenberg / Special Contributor
Frisco Wakeland High School
Things could have been much harder for Frisco Wakeland, the first Frisco program to move up to Class 6A. Geographically, Wakeland could’ve easily been paired alongside Allen and Prosper ISD in District 6-6A. Now Denton Guyer, Hebron and Lewisville pose their own challenges but a program coming off of an 11-2 record in 2025 can expect to challenge for a playoff spot immediately in District 5-6A.
High School Sports
Melissa High School
Make no mistake, District 5-5A DI is no cakewalk; state runner-up Frisco Lone Star likely still runs the slate, but for Melissa, anything beats District 4-5A Division II. Last year, Melissa made one of the best turnaround runs in D-FW, advancing all the way to the regional finals a year after missing the playoffs. But it’s not like the 2024 Melissa team was bad; they went 5-3 in district. They just happened to lose by three to Frisco Emerson, who also finished 5-3 and thus lost the tiebreaker. Joining the Frisco ISD programs instead of Anna, Lovejoy, Prosper Walnut Grove, Emerson and Melissa? You be the judge.
Related
Mesquite High School
After going 1-13 the last two seasons in Class 6A’s District of Doom, look for head coach Rafael Thomas’ Mesquite program to make a quick turnaround, dropping down to 5A Division I. Alongside district-mate West Mesquite under new head coach Jeremy Williams, Mesquite’s postseason hopes are much better on paper, paired alongside Dallas ISD and Crandall.
Losers:
Arlington ISD
One of the biggest headlines heading into realignment was where the UIL would send Aledo and very few saw this one coming. District 3-6A now spans completely through Fort Worth, pairing Arlington ISD programs with Aledo, Granbury and Weatherford, putting a near hour-drive at minimum between some programs.
“It’s definitely not what anybody expected,” Arlington Bowie head coach Joseph Sam said. “But at the same time, it’s great playing new people.
“With us being the defending district champs, and those guys being a state champ, I definitely look forward to the competition and seeing what’s going to happen.”
There was some belief that Arlington would get thrown with Mansfield ISD or Irving ISD for geographical convenience.
“I‘m not disappointed in where we’re at,” Sam said. “It is what it is when you strap it up. The great thing about where we are is that we got the kids to compete with the best of them.”
Carrollton Creekview’s Ahmari Washington (0), left, celebrates with his teammate Deonte Juake (21) after scoring a touchdown in the first half of a high school football game against North Mesquite at Standridge Stadium, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025, in Carrollton.
Chitose Suzuki / Staff Photographer
Carrollton Creekview
A resurgent two seasons under Dusty Ortiz has (17-4) created lofty expectations for Carrollton Creekview and they’ll likely remain a threat in the district, but now they go from dealing with West Mesquite to dealing with Highland Park and Richland, two programs that went a combined 21-6 in 2025, in District 6-5A Division I.
Not to mention that that also creates potential faceoffs with the likes of Frisco Lone Star, Melissa or Frisco Reedy in the opening round of the playoffs.
Related
District 11-6A
By far the biggest story at Birdville High School was when the new District 11-6A flashed on the projector screen and everyone saw Crowley and North Crowley entering the fray. Despite losing Cedar Hill, DeSoto and Lancaster to 5A Division II, the district remains the toughest in the area and perhaps all of Texas.
Disbelief, shock and frustration littered a lot of coaches’ faces, but ironically, for Crowley head coach Carlos Lynn, it was familiarity.
“It’s always a wow effect,” Lynn said. “But once you kind of get settled in, you start thinking about the Xs and O’s, travel, and all the different nuances of what you have to do start to kick in. But it’s fun just being in this environment, being in this atmosphere. You have to expect the unexpected when you’re dealing with this.”
Before taking the job at Crowley, Lynn was the head coach at Cedar Hill, a long-time staple alongside Duncanville, Mansfield ISD and Waxahachie in District 11-6A.
“Any familiarity that you have is going to be an edge,” Lynn said. “Now, whether it helps you to win a ball game or not, I don’t know, but hopefully you know some of the semantics and logistics, how things run and operate and what people are doing will probably put a feather in your cap, just a little bit.”
UIL executive director Jamey Harrison talked about the Crowley move as well as the Aledo-Arlington merger.
“If you don’t look at it holistically, it may not make sense. But when you look at it holistically, you realize there’s not a ton of options,” Harrison told the Dallas Morning News. “Every one of those districts in the D-FW area is an eight-team district, so we’ve got to put the puzzle pieces together with ISDs that make sense. Arlington, for example, has five schools. I can’t split them up by rule. They have to be in the same district together. The Crowley schools, there are two. I can’t split them. So if you put the two Crowley schools in with Aledo, that makes that a 10-team district. So who would you take out? There’s not two to take out to the east. There are five, because there are five Arlingtons. We’ve got those five-team, six-team, three-team, two-team ISDs, that by rule have to be together. We’ve got to make all of that fit and try to balance out the number of teams in a district.”
Nevada Community
Another team making a jump up in classification was Nevada Community and their draw definitely could’ve been easier. They go from a Class 4A Division I District 7 that had Celina and Frisco Panther Creek to a District 3-5A Division II pod with Argyle, Colleyville Heritage, Lovejoy and Saginaw Eagle Mountain.
Community finished the last two years going 2-18.
Find more high school sports coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.
Sign up for our FREE HS newsletter.
